KEY POINTS:
Eric Watson looks puzzled when you ask him if he might sell the Warriors sometime soon. He looks over at the team, who are taking part in an opposed training session at Mt Smart with the Auckland Lions, but it is a faraway look.
You can see the tumblers clicking around in his head, maybe configuring scenarios where he might conceivably pass on the team he first bought into seven years ago.
"No," he says. What, not even if the Warriors went on to win this year's NRL premiership - the Holy Grail he and many others at the club seek - and he then feels he has done everything he can with the club?
"No," he says. What, not even if the club went into an almighty tailspin and he was tempted to let it go and maybe chase ownership of another NRL franchise like, just to pluck a name out of the air, the Sydney Roosters?
"No," he says but he re-thinks slightly. "Maybe," he says, "but only if I feel that our stewardship of this club could be improved by someone else who could do a better job."
It's an interesting term. It is plain that 'stewardship' is part of why Watson owns this team. He enjoys answering the next, direct question: So why is he an owner of a club that has cost him money, a lot of money, and which has caused considerable angst to him and the fans?
You suddenly see a very different side of Eric Watson.
Must of us normally only glimpse this largely unseen multi-millionaire owner of the Warriors in the society pages. He often seems aloof and/or uneasy that this thin, artificial slice of his life is being captured in a picture. His image thus makes him look vaguely uncomfortable or shores up the common perception of "international man of mystery", linked to the latest celebrity blonde.
In the compelling Nicky Watson TV interview where his ex-wife bared her soul and a bit more, some clips of the Watson wedding party were shown.
Even at Mt Smart, he is still a man apart - he's the 'boss'; pretty much the only man in a suit; taking himself off down the sideline for privacy for a mobile telephone call.
But when he talks about owning the Warriors, something of the 16-year-old butcher's apprentice and the fax paper salesman that he once was before building his business empire pushes through.
"It's fun," he says of his Warriors ownership. He gives a self-deprecating laugh and shakes his head. "It's certainly not because I am going to make money out of this.
"When I bought into the Warriors, someone said to me: 'Eric, you're not the owner; you're the donor' and I think that's probably not far off the truth."
But how can it be fun pouring money into the bottomless pit that can be a football club, in any code? How can it be fun enduring the public and media slanging?
"Look, this is a very interesting business. There's always something going on that surprises me - whether it's a positive or negative surprise. I like that - and I like the challenge that offers.
"This [league] really is a sport which gets under your skin. The NRL is one of the great sporting competitions and we are one Kiwi team against all those other Aussie teams. I like those odds.
"We got to the grand final a few years ago and it was a very exciting feeling. I enjoyed that excitement and I want to feel it again.
"Plus, what a lot of people don't realise about me is that this is a unique situation. I am a New Zealander and this is a New Zealand team and if we were to win the grand final, it would make a lot of New Zealanders very proud."
That's why he doesn't countenance owning an Australian-based NRL team.
"No, it's not about the money and it's not about owning an Aussie club. I am a Kiwi and there are a lot of Kiwis involved here. This is a Kiwi club and a Kiwi business. I like the idea of building this club up so it involves and touches a lot of New Zealanders.
"To get involved with something else... another club... I don't think so. It could only happen if my interest in the Warriors diminished - and I feel this is still a once in a lifetime thing. Yeah, it's just fun."
Of past criticism, he laughs again. "You have to expect it," he says.
"We are going to make mistakes on and off the field. It's inevitable. If everything was perfect all the time, it would be pretty boring.
"So when you make mistakes and you are being hammered by the media and the fans, it's how you get up off the floor; it's what you learn and do to put it right; it's fixing it and succeeding - that's all part of the fun for me. Some people don't realise it often takes time to put things right - but that's part of the territory too."
It's plain Watson thinks the Warriors have put things right. We are at Mt Smart for the announcement of former Kiwi and inaugural Warriors skipper Dean Bell as the Warriors' community and development officer and manager of the new under-20s team which will play in an NRL competition next year.
Bell speaks with a searing honesty that marks a man much loved by the league faithful.
Bell, the Lions, the under-20s, to be coached by Tony Iro - the club really is beginning to practise what it preaches about being a "development club" as opposed to a buying club.
But it is the roll of 'good people' that pleases Watson the most. A new board, new governance, former All Black coach John Hart as director of football - and whose influence has shaped these changes - and a new culture of achievement and responsibility have dramatically changed the atmosphere.
"I played golf with John at a Dunhill tournament some years back. I finally convinced him - I had to work hard - to come but I can't say enough about him.
He understands sport and business - and not many people understand both."
It would be naive to suggest this brief interview has given us any kind of penetrating insight into Eric Watson. Common sense suggests that anyone who builds up a club and is offered a vast profit may do the deal. No one ever says 'never' in business, after all.
But maybe we've heard enough to know that Watson and his millions will be around for more of the long haul; that he won't be selling the club because he's fallen out of love with it.
He wants what a lot of Kiwis want - to stick it up the Aussies. Oh, and to keep having fun.
